dale, it always makes more sense to replace with new '09 if you can. btw, what happened with you guys?

The short story, I didn't ask Rick to come tune for us....

Longer story, full of excuses and imaginary reasons;
After Rounds 1&2, when Carl, Wes, and Rick all pointed out that I was far too wound up about things I could not make right (corner workers, helicopters, Jesse being assauted on course and in scales with no recourse) I decided to run this past weekend for 'fun' to see if I could have 'fun' at a big event.

So, with no intention of working especially hard, or worrying about a couple tenths of a second per lap, I didn't waste Ricks time by dragging him down there and then frustrating him with my attitude.

Mylaps demonstrates the result of taking a kid who is a decent driver, giving him decent equipment, and then not putting in the trackside work to keep the equipment adjusted for conditions between every single session. I think that best case, we were 2 seconds off the leaders, usually at least 2.5 seconds off the pole. I know it sounds like an advertisement for Rick, but we were racing with kids we easily run ahead of because we gave up 2 seconds a lap not having a Rick or another decent tuner with us.

Anyway.... with the acceptance of running lap times with the back half of the field came the opportunity to reaffirm that "we're having fun" every five minutes when asked how we were doing and if we were on pace yet.

And we were having fun...

The pre-final events were a lot of fun, and Jesse did a good job of moving up the grid for the Finals.

Saturday Final was almost a good race for us. Starting 7th, he avoided a couple turn one spins and emerged nearly unscathed in 2nd place behind Logan Sargeant. For the first lap and a half, he was actually near race pace and probably would have finished 4th behind Sargeant, O'Ward, and Stroll. Unfortunately, two of the karts near the back of the field got into each other on one ended up upside down in the final turns. The resulting Red Flag stopped the race and and the field was regridded in original starting order. The process of regridding, shortcutting the course to get to the front straight, and plain old bad luck resulted in Jesse's clutch to mysteriously lock into the engaged position. The engine would not refire for the restart and he required the help of a corner worker to push the direct drive kart off the racing surface for the race. The evening autopsy found no problems or debris, just a little bit of glazing on each shoe.

Sunday was much the same as Saturday. Tech inspection found questionable parts in a couple of the front runners after Qualifying and the Prefinal. We felt we were in better shape for the Final, Patricio O'Ward (mechanic and dad) gave us their engine setup and I was finally pretty close on tire pressures. Jesse got off-line in Lap 1, Turn 1 avoiding a spin up front, and spun himself. With only the very inside line now open, the pile-up was spectacular and Jesse was at the bottom. Jesse was unable to continue because as Enzo Fittipaldi passed over Jesse, the steering wheel was taken with him, destroying the steering column and the bearing securing it to the chassis. The chassis uprights that secure the steering column at the top are somewhat more flexible than originally intended as well.

Jesse was not injured at all, not even sore on Monday. The parts on the kart did their job. Although we didn't actually finish a race this weekend, we honestly did have a really good time. It would have been nice to have a talented tuner instead of the three stooges in the pitspace, but we made do with what we had. We made improvements nearly every session, never missed a session, and only worked into the night as long as we wanted to, instead of because we had to.

Instead of stopping at the beach on the way home, we saw thousands of alligators along "Alligator Alley" on the way to Naples. Pretty cool....

Did Jesse tried to "grab" rear bumper of any front runner and try to follow him?
Kids often do the same thing over and over again and you can try to "tune" all directions with a little to no progress. What did help me was watching distance stretching/closing for every turn, trying to understand what is he doing wrong and why. Sometimes (most often) it is non-optimal driving line, sometimes chassis is not letting him to turn right. Then after the race I ask specific questions about these turns where I see the problems. Kids are having fun no matter what setup it is and often provide no or invalid feedback.

Did Jesse tried to "grab" rear bumper of any front runner and try to follow him?

Oh yeah, we never even thought of that....

Quote:

Kids often do the same thing over and over again and you can try to "tune" all directions with a little to no progress. .

I guess kids that don't practice very often and don't have coaching, and don't run on different tracks almost every weekend might have trouble picking up new lines or communicating setup feel.

Quote:

What did help me was watching distance stretching/closing for every turn, trying to understand what is he doing wrong and why. Sometimes (most often) it is non-optimal driving line, sometimes chassis is not letting him to turn right. Then after the race I ask specific questions about these turns where I see the problems. Kids are having fun no matter what setup it is and often provide no or invalid feedback.